Memoirs and morsels from home and abroad

Archive for the ‘soup’ Category

Contrary to what you may believe, I do, every once in a while, make simpledinners and desserts. More often than you’d think, in fact. I’ve been trying my hand at a few classics. I mean, classics are classic for a reason. They’re tried and true. Reliable. Foolproof. So it’s high time I shared with you a few classic, good old standbys that I can throw together after a long day of work and know that they’ll be good. This way, you can throw them together too.

This look into classic dishes was inspired by a slow food campaign at my company. Our café sold, for $10 (!!!), all the ingredients (except for a chicken) necessary for a hearty, healthy dinner for a family. They even provided recipes — chicken, salad, greens and pasta, and fresh fruit for dessert. This was too good to pass up. So I lugged home my bag of groceries and laminated recipe card.

I made the chicken with just a few modifications, using chicken cutlets instead of a whole chicken and a nice addition of lemon juice. I used chard to make a minestrone. And voilà – a few dinners and lunches for the week.

These recipes aren’t rocket science, but they’re great ones to have in your repertoire. They pretty much use ingredients that are probably already in your fridge and pantry. The most difficult step is rough chopping some vegetables. And then you leave the dish to cook while you write a blog post. You just need to check on the chicken or soup every once in a while. C’est tout. That’s all there is, folks.

Chicken and root vegetables

This chicken takes about 45 minutes to an hour, from start to finish. Most of the time, the chicken is just baking in the oven and you need to check it every 10-15 minutes to mix and baste.

– 1+ pound of boneless skinless chicken breast (cutlets) – or you could use chicken parts, or boneless thighs

– 3 large carrots

– 3 large parsnips

– 4-5 celery stalks

– 1 onion

– several cloves of garlic

– 3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary

– olive oil

– 1/4 C lemon juice (to taste)

Prep. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Rough chop all the vegetables – try to get them approximately the same size (except the garlic of course).

Fill. Scatter the vegetables in a pan large enough to fit them more or less in a single layer. Douse with olive oil (maybe 2T) and sprinkle generously with salt and freshly ground pepper. Season the chicken with salt and pepper too. Place the chicken on top of the vegetables and douse the chicken with a little more olive oil (another 1-2 T) – you can omit this if you are using chicken with skin. Pour in the lemon juice.

Bake. Bake the chicken for about 45 minutes, stirring and basting every 10-15 minutes. Add water or more lemon juice if you notice that there aren’t many juices and the corners of your pan are starting to burn. The chicken is officially ready when it reaches an internal temperature of 160ºF. I generally take mine out at 155ºF, but I’m wild and crazy. If the vegetables don’t cook as fast as the chicken, take the chicken out when it is ready and let the vegetables finish baking. Add the chicken back to the pan to warm back up for 5 minutes.

Eat. Take it out. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes, and then serve it straight from the pan. You can even eat it out of the pan if no one is looking.

Chard minestrone

I found this recipe in the New York Times earlier this year. You can freeze the soup before you add the chickpeas and chard. When you want to eat, just re-heat and add in chickpeas and chard for about 10 minutes.

– olive oil

– 6 carrots

– 1 onion

– 1 T chopped garlic (yup, I use the stuff in the jar)

– several handfuls of chard – separate stems from leaves

– 1 6-ounce can tomato paste

– 7 C water

– 1 t dry thyme

– 2 bay leaves

– 1 parmesan rind

– 2 15-ounce cans garbanzo beans

– 1 C pasta

– extra parmesan

Prep. Rough chop the carrots and onions – try to get them approximately the same size chunks. Wash the chard really well. Remove the stems from the chard and rough chop as you would celery. Make a few lengthwise cuts in the chard leaves and then cut them widthwise into thin strips (“chiffonade” if you want to be all fancy about it).

Simmer. Pour enough olive oil to coat the bottom of your pot. Add all the vegetables except for the chard leaves. Saute until they start to soften, about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste, water, thyme, bay leaves, and parm. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Be careful not to set the heat too high because the soup will bubble over. Believe me – I know.

Store (optional). If you’re going to eat the soup at a later time, you can freeze or refrigerate the soup at this point. When you want to serve, proceed with the rest of the steps.

Simmer again. Rinse the chickpeas and add along with the chard leaves. Simmer for another 5-10 minutes until the chickpeas heat through and the chard wilts but still keeps its color.

Boil. Don’t boil the soup! Boil the pasta as directed, to just shy of al dente. Spoon into the soup right before serving (otherwise it will absorb the hot soup liquid and get overcooked and mushy).

Eat. Carefully. Let the soup cool off a bit before eating. I managed to burn my lip – and I was in pretty bad shape. Sprinkle with extra parm if you want.

Like this:

Whenever I travel, my sister asks for a postcard. I always buy a few. I usually write at least one. Sometimes I even get a stamp. Rarely does a card hit a foreign mailbox. Almost always, the cards are hand-delivered. And while one of the postcards has already been signed, stamped, sent, and received, until the others arrive, this post(card) will have to do.

Last month, my friend Sarah and I crisscrossed the Portugal-Spain border. The day I stumbled into Lisbon, still recovering from my red-eye and transfer in Munich, Sarah welcomed me with a box ofpastéis de nata. Our time in Portugal revolved around these incredible custard tarts in a caramelized crust. Sarah wanted to sample pastéis de nata from every corner bakery and pasteleria we passed, but once I tried the original from Pastéis de Belém, I couldn’t go back to mere copies. I loved the ones in Belém so much that on our last day in Lisbon, we took a €15 taxi for one final taste. And we did take in a few sights, including ducks, peacocks, and a couple of Portuguese good luck symbols in a little park near our hotel.

If Lisbon was all about the sweet, then Seville was all about the savory and the sensual. (Ahem … tapas and flamenco.)

We started our time in Seville with a tapas tour. Best. Idea. Ever. What better re-introduction to a city I hadn’t visited since college than a four hour (tapas) bar crawl with a virtual local (Shawn) who can find food to satisfy any taste? I like fish and vegetables, Sarah wanted to try everything. And Shawn navigated our preferences as easily as she navigated around the Sunday after-churchgoers vying for space up against the bar under dozens of jamón hanging from the ceiling like the pots and pans that adorn my own kitchen. She also armed us for our own gourmand adventures over the next few days with lists of restaurant recommendations and real-time tweets about where to go and when to show up to guarantee a table early or to catch the kitchen before it closed.

Sarah’s done a great job of cataloging her favorite stops. Just like I can’t stop thinking about the best pastéis de nata in Belém, I keep replaying in my mind our meal at La Azotea until my mouth waters (as cliché as that sounds). After several days of largely fried foods, I was craving more vegetables than salmorejo could offer (more on that cousin of gazpacho in just a bit). La Azotea delivered.

We were greeted and seated just before 1:00 at one of only six tables. Just in time, too, because by 1:15, all six of those tables were filled and the waiters could barely squeeze past the lunching crowd crowding the bar. Lucky for us, owner Juan helped us choose lunch and wine and dessert. Course after course,we pulled out our cameras and peppered Juan with questions.

When I asked for a recommendation on a good local wine store, Juan slipped out the front door with us, crossed the street and unlocked the door to Vinos y Más. Only open in the evening, the restaurant’s wine bar is filled with some of Spain’s best goodies, from local wines and olive oils lining two walls to cheeses and meats behind a glass case. Wine barrels scattered in the small space serve as high-top tables. I leaned against one as Juan helped me pick out several wines to bring home (to be carried back, as usual, in my suitcase).

When we finally followed the scent of orange blossoms back to Santa Cruz, it was nearly 5:00 pm.

After days of stuffing ourselves with tapas and walking from monument to cathedral to clothing store, we dedicated our nights to flamenco. We saw one, sometimes two shows a night: in tablaos like my favorite El Arenal and the more commercial Los Gallos; at Museo del Baille Flamenco – the flamenco museum where I also took a flamenco dance class (!!); at La Carbonería (Levíes, 18), a hidden-from-the-street almost subterranean bar with a nightly flamenc0 gathering at 11:00 pm. Clearly we should have hit La Carbonería before our last night when we had to catch a midnight bus back to Lisbon.

Flamenco is all about the interplay between the dance, the music, and the song. Assuming that I would mainly watch the dancer, I found myself again and again drawn to the guitarist’s fingers strumming, plucking, tapping the strings and reflected in the dancer’s expression and fanning hands.

My dance training always emphasized that even the most difficult step should appear light and effortless. In flamenco, emotion is at the fore and effort-full movement follows. They literally dance from the soles of their feet to the tips of their fingers. The result is passion. It’s not always pretty, but it’s very very real. (Can you tell I’m planning to take some more classes?)

Don’t worry…I didn’t forget about that salmorejo recipe I promised. Every day (sometimes twice a day) I ate this tomato-only, slightly thicker with the addition of more day-old bread, riff on gazpacho. Or maybe gazpacho is a riff on salmorejo. Luckily, I love them both.

Salmorejo

Salmorejo is a creamy chilled tomato soup thickened with bread. It is traditionally served with a sprinkle of diced egg and ham.

Gather.

– 8-12 ripe tomatoes

– 2 garlic cloves

– 1/4 C sherry vinegar (can substitute wine vinegar)

– sea salt to taste (I used ~2 t)

– 3/4 C extra virgin olive oil

– 2/3 day old baguette (~200 gm) — in a pinch, I’ve used pita!

– Fruity olive oil (Spanish arbequina is perfect for salmorejo – if you can’t get it in Spain, Unió is my favorite and available online and at Whole Foods)

– 2 eggs

Purée. Core and roughly chop the tomatoes. You can peel them for a smoother consistency, but I haven’t found that it makes an appreciable difference. Throw them in blender with the garlic and purée. A lot. The mix will be a light red. Add vinegar, salt, and regular olive oil. Keep puréeing until smooth and orange. This can take a few minutes. You might need to do it in 2 batches.

Soak. Tear up the bread and drop into the blender with the tomato mixture. Let soak for about 15 minutes until soggy.

Boil. Hard boil the eggs. Cool.

Purée again. Once the bread is good and soggy, purée until smooth and even lighter orange.

Garnish. Drizzle with a special fruity olive oil and sprinkle with chopped egg (and ham if you want).

Like this:

A few weeks ago, I made my first shabbat dinner in months. Many, many months. I fretted about the burnt chicken, the apple-pear galette that cracked, the salad poorly dressed. But the one thing I could rely on was the mushroom soup. It’s the absolute essence of mushroom. And the recipe is little more than sautéeing several handfuls of sliced mushrooms with shallots, throwing together a roux to thicken things up a bit, and adding broth and sherry. Then a quick buzz with an immersion blender and voilà — creamy thick mushroom soup. Garnish with a few chives and we’re ready to get the meal started.

Mushroom Soup

Makes a lot, but our party of 5 finished the entire pot. Probably should serve up to 8.

I adapted this from two wild mushroom soups – one from Levana Kirschbaum and one from Carole Sobell. I left out Levana’s soy milk, but added her sherry and used flour instead of Sobell’s cornstarch. I kept her thyme as well, but dropped the saffron. I kept Sobell’s simplicity and her chives turned the soup from good to spectacular with just a hint of bite and sharpness.

Prep. There’s a lot of chopping going on here. Finely hop the garlic and shallots fine. Clean and slice the mushrooms any which way you want.

Sauté. Melt the margarine in a big soup pot. Sauté the garlic and shallots over low heat until translucent (try not to let them color). Add the mushrooms and thyme and continue to sauté for another 8-10 minutes or so. Add the flour to the pot and cook for 2-3 minutes, mixing to make sure there are no lumps. Add broth and sherry and simmer for ~15 minutes. Remove the thyme branches, which by now should be bare of leaves. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Blend. Whip the soup with an immersion blender until smooth. You can also pass the soup through a sieve, but I didn’t bother.

Like this:

Last Monday was Labor Day (well, you probably knew that). It was also farmers’ market day in my neighborhood. And since I didn’t have to go to work, I spent a good hour wandering around fruit, vegetable, and bakery stands rather than rushing in 15 minutes before they close on the way home from work. The weather was glorious and I lingered at each vendor, tasting here and there, sniffing and thumping, making the perfect choices. Since I was having a friend over for dinner, I bought an abundance of summer produce – heirloom tomatoes, plums, zucchini, and eight cucumbers. Eight? Yes, I had an idea.

Last year at another nearby farmers’ market, a local chef, Chris Parsons, was sharing tastes of a recipe from his restaurant, Catch. I took a few spoonfuls of the smooth light green concoction and immediately knew that I had found the perfect recipe to take advantage of the free Greek yogurt that Stonyfield Farms shared with me and my blog. I was a quick convert to Greek yogurt and have never looked back. But back to that summer soup. I asked Chris for the recipe and he emailed me a few days later. But the weather turned cold, and warm soups beckoned.

And then all of a sudden, it was summer again. With work a little crazy and much weekend travel, my days of leisurely cooking have suffered. But I couldn’t let another summer pass without making that creamy cucumber soup that so enchanted me last year. Labor Day was the day to slave away in the kitchen with a cool breeze blowing through my open windows. So I made a dinner of cucumber gazpacho followed by ceviche, and kept the oven off.

Cucumber Gazpacho

I made a few adjustments to Chris Parson’s recipe and have copied it verbatim at the end of this post. The soup is very simple, but the yellow curry topping gives an extra kick. And I like a little kick. I used nonfat yogurt instead of whole milk yogurt, and then added some full-fat labne to the garnish to thicken it up.

Mix. Toss the cucumbers, oil, vinegar, bread, and yogurt into a big ziplock bag (none of my bowls could fit all the ingredients with enough room to mix). Shake and allow the liquid to soak into the bread for ~10 minutes.

Blend. Throw the mix into a blender and liquefy in two batches. Add salt and pepper to taste. I didn’t bother to strain the soup because I liked the flecks of green (and I couldn’t find my strainer).

Chill. The soup is a little bit thinner than the one I tried because I used nonfat yogurt. Once you chill it for a few hours, it thickens up a bit and also gives the flavors some time to develop. (I found the soup better the next day).

Like this:

With a rainy Sunday and a long week of work ahead, today was a day for cooking. In an effort to break my eating out every lunch habit, I set to work on a hearty last all week soup. The recipe is simple, hearty, and plentiful. And that’s it. Happy almost Monday, everyone!

Red Lentil Soup

This soup reminds me of one that I had when I was in Cairo a few months ago. I based it on one I found in the NYT and then I upped the Middle Eastern factor with a more than liberal sprinkling of cumin and the addition of sumac which adds a sour note. The lemon juice at the end adds extra freshness.

Serves 6-8.

-3-4 T olive oil

– 2 onions, chopped

– 4 cloves garlic, chopped

– 1 6 oz. can of tomato paste

– 1 heaping T cumin

– a few pinches cayenne pepper

– 1 heaping t sumac

– 6-7 C vegetable broth

– 1.5 C red lentils

– 1 C brown lentils (not French/de Puy lentils)

– salt and pepper to taste

– lemon juice

Heat olive oil and saute onion and garlic about 4-5 minutes until soft. Add tomato paste, cumin, cayenne, and sumac, sauteing for another 5 minutes. Add broth and lentils and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes until lentils soften. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a few splashes of lemon.

Like this:

Snow always makes me feel like a little kid. Especially the first big snowstorm of each year. Memories of waking up to see the window sill coated white. Lying in bed, awaiting that early morning call from the phone chain letting my parents know that school was canceled. Sledding with friends in the park that was just next to my house. And of course, hot cocoa when we returned home, noses and hands chapped despite gloves and scarves. Then ready to head out for more.

This year’s first snowfall was a bit of a letdown. Less than an inch but still sticking to the grass and sufficiently cold to cause traffic issues on black ice. Nonetheless, I slept in, bundled up in blankets and quilts, and had a nice indoor Sunday. And I realized that I could fight it no longer — soup season was officially here.

So, my inaugural soup this Winter (oh, even writing the word seems like an admission of the season despite a couple more weeks before the calendar agrees) is a spicy butternut squash one. No sweet squash here — I always prefer main course types to be savory. And this one has a kick of spice that hits you nicely, keeping your cheeks and tongue warm long after the soup has reached your belly.

Here’s to soup season and many cozy nights.

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup

Adapted from Simple to Spectacular by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman. What I love about the cookbook is that it presents a limited number of dishes, each with five variations ranging in difficulty as the title suggests. This particular recipe is second in the butternut squash soup repertoire. It calls for roasting the squash twice – once on the stovetop and once in the oven. When pressed for time, I have skipped the stovetop roasting with only a small drop in the richness of squash flavor. And don’t forget to roast the seeds — they taste a little bit like popcorn.

– 2 T extra virgin olive oil

– 2-3 cloves minced garlic

– 2 medium or 3 small butternut squash (original recipe calls for 2 lb of squash, but I never pay attention to weight)

– 1/2 – 1 t red pepper flakes (to taste)

– 1 t thyme

– 4 C broth (vegetable, chicken, etc)

– Parmesan (optional)

– salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Prepare the squash. Peel, seed, and cut the squash into 1-inch chunks. I would really encourage you to wash the seeds off and roast them.

Pan-roast. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in large skillet that will fit at least 6C of liquid — I have often done this directly in a large ovenproof pot. Add garlic, squash, red pepper flakes, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook the squash, stirring every few minutes until squash starts to brown. This takes 10-15 minutes.

Oven-roast. Put the skillet in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, checking and shaking 2-3 times.

Back to the stove-top. Take the skillet out and put it back on the stove-top over medium heat. Add the stock. Cook another 15-20 minutes until the squash is very tender. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. If it is too thick, add some water.

Like this:

The East coast seems to have been hit by a fair amount of rain over the past few days. I am accustomed to the summer thunderstorms that we often get in my hometown of DC — that crash-and-tumble excitement, the flashes of light thatbrighten the sky, a few torrential downpours that reveal a rainbow and hidden sun. Less so the Eeyore-inspired drizzle gray of Cantabrigia both new and old that has visited us here for the past few days. Combine that with a pulled muscle in my neck from dance class on Sunday and I need some comfort food.

Cookies? Nah…I want dinner. Mac and cheese? Maybe, but I had bucatini 2 nights ago and I don’t generally eat much pasta. My fridge is unusually bare after having made two big meals over the past few weeks, so I needed to scrounge around. I had just barely enough onions to throw together an onion soup, a meal in a bowl with the rich taste of caramelized onions, warm broth, toasted bread (or stale baguette, which I always seem to have around), and strings of melted cheese. When I was younger, this used to be my favorite dish to order in a restaurant, and the fancy presentation with cheese dripping off the side of a piping hot crock always impressed me. The childhood memory and thoughts of a steaming meal are a perfect recipe for uber-comfort on a weary dreary evening.

Soupe à L’Oignon Gratinée (ou pas)

This is such an easy soup to make with ingredients that you probably have lying around your kitchen. Onions. Butter. Spices. Leftover dry white wine or Vermouth. Boxed or dried vegetable (or chicken or beef) stock. The homey richness comes from giving the onions enough time to caramelize. I do not use beef stock and still my soup comes out a deep dark brown with an earthy flavor.

Makes ~ 4-6 servings, depending on size of your bowls. I made 4 bowls that turned into 3 full meals (I was really ravenous that first night).

I’ve written this recipe the way that it came together — my apologies for not writing it in “standard recipe format” with a list of ingredients followed by directions, but this was my thought process as I was throwing this easy soup together and I wanted to preserve the feeling. I’ve highlighted quantities to make your lives a little easier.

Caramelize onions in butter over medium heat with 3 generous pinches salt, stirring every 5-10 minute. This took me about 30-45 minutes. If you burn the onions, it’s not too big of a deal. Just turn the heat down a bit and keep stirring. You want the onions to turn a really dark brown but not to turn to mush. The red onion retained a bit of its purplish color.

onions translucent, after 10 minutes

caramelized onions, 30+ minutes

Deglaze with ~1/2 C dry white wine – I used an open Pinot Grigio that I had in my fridge (this was probably not the driest, but it worked pretty well…and I took a few sips while cooking) – and increase heat until most of the liquid evaporates (can also use vermouth). Make sure to scrape up all the good onion bits stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Add herbs: 1/2 t savory, 1-2 T thyme crumbled through your fingers

Add 4 C broth: vegetable or fake (or real) chicken/beef broth. I am embarrassed to admit that I used some of that powdered parve broth substitute because that’s all I had around. Yup, this stuff is little more than salt and MSG. But the soup still turned out great.

Add 3 bay leaves.

Bring to boil, then simmer ~30 minutes.

Remove bay leaves before serving.

This makes ~ 5 cups of soup which is great plain or you can serve it gratinée: sprinkle with cut bread crumbs from stale baguette and shredded cheese.The traditional cheese to use is gruyère but I have never found a good kosher one. I used some Raclette which I had left over from my zucchini tart, and it was a pretty good substitute. I also tried some Ermitage Royal Camembert that I had in my fridge, and this worked surprisingly well.

the broth is really dark

ready to pop into the oven

Pop in oven at 350°F for 10 minutes to melt cheese or put under broiler for 2-3 minutes (watch to avoid burning too much).

baked at 350

broiled, 2-3 minutes

NOTE: if you want to make this for a meat meal, use margarine (I’ve done it before, it does work out) and obviously omit the cheese. You can make the soup completely parve with veggie stock, or use a meat or chicken stock. You could try melting soy cheese, but I’ve never tried it so can’t speak about how this will taste. I really do like this soup without cheese almost as much as I like it gratinée.

***

As I was making the soup, I put on one of my favorite albums – a South African band called Mafikizolo‘s first recording called “Sibongile” that I bought when I was in Cape Town a few years ago. (Apparently, this CD has been discontinued and I can’t find mine; I have it loaded on my ancient 20 gig iPod that is on its last legs. I’ve backed it up, but if it dies, my music may be gone forever…sad Zahavah.) Sibongile means “Thank you, God” in Zulu, the album was released after two of its members survived a bad car accident. I love that they wear retro ’50s outfits and can pull off hats with panache to go with their swingy bluesy vibe, have a broad range of styles (some of their more recent music — not what I’ve uploaded here — is more clubby with a techno beat), and take pride in their roots (from what little I know) with references to townships in their recent album title and their music.

Here are some of my favorite songs from this album (the first three songs) that I play to chase away the clouds.

Like this:

There has been a lot of talk about CSAs – community supported agriculture – in the world at large and in the Jewish community. For example, check out the past few Hazon Food Conferences and their The Jew and the Carrot blog.

I first learned about CSAs when my good friend, Meira, the source of the pretzel chicken “nuggets” recipe, joined a CSA in New York and cooked interesting dishes with her fresh local vegetables. She always introduced each dish with, “I got this squash/cabbage/spinach from Eve, my Jewish female farmer.” She really seemed to feel a kinship with her farmer, especially after going to some sort of outdoorsy event way out on Long Island and driving past the Garden of Eve farm!

So, I was excited when my own local community decided to partner with a CSA. But I was also a bit apprehensive. Sure, there are a lot of pros – supporting local farmers and guaranteeing their livelihood, getting in tune with a more agrarian life (and a little reminder of the importance of the harvest in Jewish festivals), eating fresh (and almost entirely organic) produce, etc. And my friend Laura, whom I call “farmer Laura” since she will be be spending the summer as an ADAMAH Fellow — is organizing the CSA partnership and was quick to point out some of the logistical virtues partnering with this particular farm — Heavens Harvest — notably that they provide timely recipes that incorporate that week’s harvest and pre-pack everyone’s share (or half-share for couples or three-tenth-share for those single people out there…they’ve even thought of us!) which is apparently a vast improvement over other CSAs that have you bag your own which can take forever.

Despite all of these benefits, I was worried about one con – the loads and loads of kale that I would very likely be stuck with at the end of the season.

See, apparently kale is a very hearty leafy green and grows when other veggies can’t quite make the cut. So if the weather is really bad, kale will dominate.

Of course, I have never cooked kale. I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten kale.

But, I’m open to new things and in preparation for joining the CSA, I decided to buy some kale and make something with it. In case I needed a push over the edge, the label on the rubber band around the kale was written in French, calling the leaves chou vert frisé. I once had a boss who could convince me to do any menial task by telling me, “it’s French…you’ll like it.”

So I bought some curly green cabbage and tried a recipe on a card near the grocery store entrance.

Like this:

Yes, you guessed it…I’ve started going to yoga. I am officially a Cantabrigian (n, a native resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts according to Merriam-Webster Online dictionary). Granted, I still try to look like a ballerina in class, I can’t hold a single pose, and I giggle when the teacher says “namaste,” but I do enjoy it and feel great afterward. After class a few weeks ago, I wanted to extend the healthy glow and was super hungry, but had virtually no vegetables in my fridge except for an almost full bag of shredded carrots a week past their use by date. They looked fine, showed no growth, and were not slimy at all. I figured I could turn them into a soup. I’m sure some of you out there are already horrified and will never eat in my home again, but come on….there are starving children somewhere in the world, this was much better than eating Ben and Jerry’s straight from the container, and I wouldn’t run this type of risk for guests. Moving on.

I checked out C&Z and searched for “carrot soup”– Clotilde had a recipe for carrot-mint soup and one of the comments mentioned replacing the mint with coriander. This sounded like a good starting point. I played around a bit and here’s what I came up with. It was great and will definitely reappear on my table for guests (with fresh carrots…).

Carrot-Coriander-Cilantro Soup

Inspired by Chocolate & Zucchini’s Soupe de Carotte a la Mente I consider this a quick and easy meal because except for chopping the onion, there is virtually no prepping required, and everything is in one pot. The only major clean-up is the pot, your immersion blender, and a few utensils.

Serves 4 as starter or 2 as main

2T olive or vegetable oil

½ onion (red or white), chopped

1-2 t garlic, minced (1-2 cloves)

1 T coriander

~10 oz bag shredded carrots (can also use baby carrots or large peeled and cut carrots)

Ersatz chicken broth mix + 5-6 C water (or chicken or vegetable broth) – I use Osem brand but it does contain MSG

1.5 T chopped cilantro*

1 T lemon juice (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil over medium heat; saute onion and garlic in oil until translucent

Bring to boil, then turn down heat and simmer for ~15 minutes until carrots soften.

If using larger carrots, this might take longer; when carrots are soft, use immersion blender to puree, but allow some chunks to remain

Remove from heat and add cilantro, lemon juice if using, and salt and pepper to taste (may not need salt if using ersatz chicken broth powder); serve hot

* I keep chopped herbs in my freezer so they are ready to use in soups and other dishes. If my basil or mint plant is overgrown, or I have bought too much, I chop up the herbs, wrap in plastic in a roll so it is easy to measure by eye, and then store in a freezer bag. When I want to use these “fresh” frozen herbs later, they defrost really quickly, especially when dropped in a pot of soup.